Meta

Category / Ubiquity

Please find below a pointer to a recently published paper entitled “Implementation of a European e-Infrastructure for the 21st Century”.

The objective of the implementation plan is to put in place the e-infrastructure commons that will enable digital science by introducing IT as a service to the public research sector in Europe.

The rationale calls for a hybrid model that brings together public and commercial service suppliers to build a network of Centres of Excellence offering a range of services to a wide user base. The platform will make use of and cooperate with existing European e-infrastructures by jointly offering integrated services to the end-user. This hybrid model represents a significant change from the status-quo and will bring benefits for the stakeholders: end-users, research organisations, service providers (public and commercial) and funding agencies.

Centres of Excellence can be owned and operated by a mixture of commercial companies and public organisations. Their portfolio of services, starting with those listed by eIRG and the High Level Expert Group on Scientific Data, will be made available under a set of terms and conditions that are compliant with European jurisdiction and legislation with service definitions implementing recognised policies for trust, security and privacy notably for data protection. A funding model engaging all stakeholder groups is described. The ability to fully exploit the potential for knowledge and job creation that is locked-up in the datasets and algorithms to be hosted by the Centres of Excellence will require the nurturing of a new generation of data scientists with a core set of ICT skills.

A management board where all the Centres of Excellence operating organisations are represented will provide strategic and financial oversight is coupled with a user forum, through which the end-users themselves, in a cross-disciplinary body collaborate to define requirements and policies for the services. A pilot service is proposed that can be rapidly established by building on the existing investments. The pilot service will demonstrate the feasibility of the e-infrastructure Centres of Excellence model for a range of scientific disciplines and evaluate the suitability for the ESFRI Research Infrastructures, that are currently under-development and represent Europe’s future “big data factories”. Implementation will start in 2014, initially offering a limited set of services at a prototype Centre of Excellence.

This is the third in a series of documents by the EIROforum IT working group on the future of e-infrastructures. The documents from the EIROforum IT working group are seen as starting-point for an inclusive activity that will bring together a number of e-infrastructures into a public-private ecosystem where the value of the whole is far greater than an individual component.

We welcome your feedback on these documents, to improve the concept, its relevance and implementation. The intention is to revise the documents based on the feedback received.

In addition an email list has been created, e-infrastructure-for-the-future@cern.ch to which you can subscribe and pose questions of a more general nature (to subscribe simply send an email request to the list).

Activities will now focus on putting in place the structures defined in these documents, notably the User Forum, for which Jamie Shiers jamie.shiers@cern.ch will be leading the preparation for its first meeting. The prototype e-infrastructure Centre of Excellence described in the implementation plan is being established by the IT department at CERN and a dedicated email list for subscription and questions has been created: prototype-centre-of-excellence@cern.ch (to subscribe simply send an email request to the list).

A scholarship from big tobacco company led Leila to volunteer as a teacher in Ghana. Seeing her students ambition combined with the rise in global literacy and access to technology, Leila presents the concept of microwork as a way to overcome poverty and participate in the global tech economy.

Leila Chirayath Janah is the founder of Samasource, a social business that connects women, youth, and refugees living in poverty to microwork — small, computer-based tasks that build skills and generate life-changing income.

GLORIAD is built on a fiber-optic ring of networks around the northern hemisphere of the earth, providing scientists, educators and students with advanced networking tools that improve communications and data exchange, enabling active, daily collaboration on common problems. With GLORIAD, the scientific community can move unprecedented volumes of valuable data effortlessly, stream video and communicate through quality audio- and video-conferencing.

GLORIAD exists today due to the shared commitment of the US, Russia, China, Korea, Canada, the Netherlands and the five Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, to promote increased engagement and cooperation between their countries, beginning with their scientists, educators and young people. The benefits of this advanced network are shared with Science & Education (S&E) communities throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas.

GLORIAD provides more than a network; it provides a stable, persistent, non-threatening means of facilitating dialog and increased cooperation between nations that often have been at odds through the past century. This new era of cooperation will provide benefits not only to the S&E communities but to every citizen in the partner countries through:

Improved weather forecasting and atmospheric modeling through live sharing of monitoring data

New discoveries into the basic nature and structure of the universe through advanced network connections between high energy physicists and astronomers – and the expensive facilities GLORIAD makes it possible to share

Support of the global community building the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), creating a technology which will someday provide a practically limitless supply of energy

Strengthening current programs in nuclear weapons disposal, nuclear materials protection, accounting and control and active discussions on combating terrorist threats.

Increasing classroom-to-classroom cooperation to accessible scientists and students in other countries through the 24/7 EduCultural Channel, the “Virtual Science Museum of China,” the Russia-developed “Simple Words ” global essay contest, and a special partnership with International Junior Achievement.

These are a small sample of the literally thousands of active collaborations served by both the general and advanced network services provided by GLORIAD. To learn more about the applications using GLORIAD, browse the following pages. This site describes the currently operating GLORIAD network and plans to expand this to a much higher capacity and more capable infrastructure in the years ahead.

Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson and their team at GoROWE.com have made it their mission to promote “results-only work environments”. They have a Linkedin GoROWE Group http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2715125 and a blog at their web page. I think it is asinine that as we build out global broadband, cloud computing and distributed computing like World Community Grid, Grid Republic and BOINC, that management refuses to adopt/provide tools which would allow folks (many with disabilities — 70% unemployed) to work from anywhere the work can be done. Sure, there are security and IP issues, but there are rural economic development and green issues, not to mention digital accessibility issues that CANNOT be solved until the mental culture/worldview of C-Suites and their subordinates promote the available technologies. So share holders, proxy holders, institutional investors–let’s start asking about these issues during the next quarterly conference call.

September 8, 2009 (Sarasota, FL & Houston, TX) – St. Joseph Medical Center, the largest, Level 3 trauma hospital in downtown Houston, has selected MedConcierge to provide its advanced telemedicine solution to leading communities and corporations. Both parties will demonstrate the user experience and benefits of telemedicine during the upcoming 2009 FTTH Conference & Expo taking place at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, September 27th through October 1st.

"We are very excited to demonstrate the MedConcierge at St. Joseph Medical Center service to local community developers and corporate executives at the upcoming Fiber to the Home Conference," states St. Joseph chief executive officer Phillip D. Robinson, "Telemedicine will clearly be at the center of healthcare delivery moving forward and leveraging the technological advantages of the MedConcierge service over fiber-optic communications will help us extend patient services, generate additional revenue and save costs."

"St. Joseph is a leader in the Houston area, and we are thrilled to play a role in helping them deliver health and wellness services to residents of FTTH communities in and around the Houston metropolitan area," says MedConcierge director Rob Scheschareg. "Telemedicine offers competitive and financial benefits in a cost-effective fashion that is critical in today's market environment. We look forward to meeting service providers and developers at the FTTH Conference & Expo who want to take advantage of the billions being spent by consumers and the government in the next 30 months on home-based telemedicine."

Substantial news coverage, increasing consumer interest and adoption, and the allocation of billions of dollars in Federal stimulus funds specifically for broadband and healthcare information technology have placed telemedicine at the forefront of applications that benefit from fiber to the home networks.

"Fiber to the home provides benefits to consumers and employers that truly improve the quality of life. From our own industry research to that of our members and market followers, it is becoming increasingly evident that consumers want the benefits of improved healthcare services and access to doctors that services like MedConcierge and healthcare providers like St. Joseph can provide," states Joe Savage, president of the FTTH Council. "Telemedicine is a prime example of the type of applications that will be on display at our upcoming conference demonstrating the power of fiber".

To showcase the user experience, benefits and implementation of telemedicine services, MedConcierge and St. Joseph Medical Center will be hosting a number of activities at the upcoming 2009 FTTH Conference & Expo. These include:

St. Joseph Medical Center, downtown Houston's only general acute care hospital, partners with Houston physicians to provide comprehensive health care to all. As Houston's first hospital, St. Joseph Medical Center provides services for outpatients as well as inpatients, with a full continuum of care in surgery, cancer care, emergency care, Women's services, cardiovascular services, wound care, rehab, sports medicine, Corporate Health Connection and more. For more information on St. Joseph Medical Center, please visit http://www.sjmctx.com or call 713.757.1000.

About MedConcierge, LLC

MedConcierge is the leading provider of telemedicine solutions for community developers and operators, broadband service providers, healthcare providers, and municipalities, that deliver personal, concierge healthcare services to consumers at home, at work and while traveling. Utilizing our award-winning, patent-pending technology, MedConcierge provides unparalleled private and secure access to certiﬁed doctors, specialists and content. MedConcierge offerings range from real-time, live videoconference consultations, on demand, 24/7 with leading doctors, specialists, psychiatrists and wellness experts, to educational content, health status monitoring and dynamic electronic medical records – all accessible from the comfort, privacy and convenience of homes and facilities. For more information, visit http://www.medconcierge.com.

Virginia Governor Timothy M. Kaine today announced that Virginia teleworkers saved approximately $113,000, avoided driving 140,000 miles, and removed 75.89 tons of pollutants from the air through participation in Telework Day on August 3, 2009.

“I commend the individuals and organizations that took the Telework Day pledge,” Governor Kaine said. “The results are clear – telework plays an important role in meeting the Commonwealth’s green objectives, reducing strain and traffic on our roads, increasing savings for our employees, and will provide our businesses with increased employee productivity.”

The “What We Saved; What We Learned” report, compiled by Telework Exchange, also reveals an increase in productivity by participants and reports satisfaction with their teleworking experience.

Key findings:

4,267 employees teleworked on Telework Day – 22% of participants never teleworked before Telework Day; 95% of participants located in Virginia

69% of Virginia Telework Day participants said they accomplished more than on a typical day at the office

91% of Virginia Telework Day participants say they are now more likely to telework in the future

Teleworking one day per week delivers approximately $2,000 in savings to each teleworker annually

Throughout August and September, the FCC is holding a series of workshops to support the Commissioners as they draw up a national broadband plan. These sessions focused on broadband’s impact on the economy, especially in rural areas, and on skills training and job hunting. The Recovery Act calls for a plan to be submitted to Congress by Feb. 17, 2010.
Washington, DC

Milt Capps reported on the Nashville Medical Trade Center and the proposed Nashville Entrepreneur Center here. Given today's technology I'd like to suggest that instead of building a PLACE it would be more strategic to offer a slate of SERVICES; specifically, those which would concentrate on the nexus of bioinformatics, cloud computing and distributed computing. With the recent gains in virtualization, the global build out of broadband, and the Obama Administration emphasis on healthcare, eHealth, medical devices and sensors, both the figurative and literal medical home, it seems there's an awful lot of emphasis on the part of executives to re-create an 1980 business model instead of looking ahead at the healthcare horizon. Nashville already has plenty of data centers to throw at this problem; a voucher system to pay for a computing services testbed while companies are bootstrapped is a more prudent first step — not to mention, tremendously less expensive to capitalize. Graduate studies at local higher education institutions, Internet2 and extant supercomputing capabilites at Oak Ridge should all be tapped first before other steps are taken.</ed.note>

Computer World/Network World – Former Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Carly Fiorina may be launching a run for the U.S. Senate.
Fiorina, a Republican, “filed for a tax identification number Tuesday and registered a campaign committee named ‘Carly for California,’” allowing her to raise money for a 2010 Senate run, according to the Associated Press. Fiorina would be attempting to win the seat of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, a Democrat from California who became senator in 1992."

<ed.note>T'is a shame she decide not to use the Technotarian ticket and unify as many third parties as possible. We are apparently beyond the point in the development of the US political structure for a viable alternative party based on conservative (and transparent) fiscal and monetary policies along with compassionate, yet personal responsibility requiring (PRR) social policy. Given her global perspective and technology/telephony expetise she could have been an incredible boon to rural economic development based on individualized distance education and hybridized cloud and distributed computing.</ed.note>